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This day of communal Kaddish, enacted after the Holocaust, is just right for this moment
(JTA) — Today is an unusual day on the Jewish calendar, which falls on the 10th of Tevet. Not only is it one of the fast days mourning the destruction of the Temple, but it is also a communal day of saying Mourner’s Kaddish.
This practice was instituted by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel in 1951, following the Holocaust, to offer those whose family members died — but it was not clear when — an opportunity for a specific day of mourning. These practices include lighting a yahrzeit candle, learning Torah in their memory and saying Mourner’s Kaddish.
Currently, the Jewish people are living through a horrible moment. We are praying for the return of the hostages in health. But every day brings new announcements of those who were killed — and the day of their death is not known.
It is worthwhile then, on this day, to really understand the nature of the Kaddish. Is this really a prayer that comes to praise God’s name, as might be implied by the opening words: “Magnified and Sanctified Be [God’s] Great Name”? And if so, why was it a prayer assigned for mourners to say?
There are two main phrases that are key to understanding the Kaddish. By looking at them closely, we can transform our understanding of the prayer — from a testimony to faith in a God whose actions cause us to suffer for reasons we don’t understand to a prompt that reminds God of the brokenness of the world.
The first key phrase is that opening line: “Yitgadal Ve-Yitkadash Shemei Rabbah.” It is understandable how this could be seen as a prayer praising God. But the prayer is not a praise; it is a request. The worshiper is asking for God to be magnified and to be sanctified, implying — correctly — that God is not magnified and sanctified right now.
How could it be that God is not magnified and sanctified now? It is clear from the biblical context of this line in Ezekiel 38:23 that God will only be made great and holy at the end of days, when all nations recognize God as the supreme moral force in the world.
In a world of death and mourning, it is clear that God is not fully holy, or great. This prayer — put in the mouth of the mourner — begs God to speed the day when God is, in fact, great and holy. But it acknowledges that we aren’t there yet.
The other line in Kaddish that is critical is the congregational response: Y’hei Sh’mei Raba M’varach L’alam Ul’almei Almaya. The translation: “May His great Name be blessed forever and for all eternity.” A very strange feature of the Kaddish is the lack of God’s name. Almost all other prayers mention God’s name — so why is it missing from this particular prayer?
The answer has everything to do with the radical theology of the Kaddish. This is a prayer that is acting out the reality we live in: a world in which God’s name is diminished. And while we want God’s name to be magnified and sanctified, and we ask for that in this prayer, we still live in a world where that hasn’t happened fully. This is made clear through the death we are mourning, the death that occasions the recitation of this prayer.
This is illustrated in one of the oldest stories about the Kaddish, in the Babylonian Talmud , which is the source of this line of the prayer:
Rabbi Yose said: One time I was walking on the path, and I entered a ruin from one of the ruins of Jerusalem in order to pray. Elijah of blessed memory came and watched the doorway until I finished my prayer …. he said to me … :
“Whenever the Israelites go into the synagogues and schoolhouses and respond: ‘May His great name be blessed,’ God shakes His head and says: “Happy is the king who is thus praised in His house! Woe to the father who had to banish his children, and woe to the children who had to be banished from the table of their father!” (Brachot 3a)
This source offers another perspective on the context of the congregational response. On the one hand, when the phrase is recited by Israel in the synagogues and study houses, God is filled with happiness. But immediately following this statement of joy, God goes on to say: Woe is Me and woe is Israel.
The source reflects the complex emotions that are embedded in the recitation of the line. This is a line that was associated with the presence of God; reciting it meant that God’s name — the embodiment of God’s immanence — was at hand. Yet it is recited not in the world of the Temple and the High Priest, but rather in a world in which Jerusalem is in ruins.
In other words, the line has morphed from a reaction to God’s presence to a painful reminder of God’s hiddenness. God is no longer available in this world in the way God once was.
The Kaddish is not a stoic praise of an unfeeling God who for reasons we can’t know let our loved ones die without remorse. Rather, it is a plea for a better world in which God is more fully holy, and the presence of God more completely experienced.
We are not living in that world, and the Kaddish knows it; but it offers us a path to imagine a world beyond our current one. And critically, God is in league with us in begging for that world to come soon.
On the Day of Communal Kaddish 5784, at a time when it is clear we are not living in an ideal world, when the difficulty, pain and mourning that is found in every household, village and city, let us recite and respond to the Mourner’s Kaddish as a prayer, a call, and even a demand, that a better world come our way — speedily.
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BBC Silent as Journalists Urged to ‘Wear Keffiyeh to Work’ for Palestinian ‘Solidarity’ Day
The BBC logo is seen at the entrance at Broadcasting House, the BBC headquarters in central London. Photo by Vuk Valcic / SOPA Images/Sipa USA.
“Wear something red, green, black, or a Palestinian keffiyeh to visibly show solidarity.”
That’s the work attire directive from the Trades Union Congress (TUC), the UK’s largest umbrella group representing 48 trade unions and over 5.5 million workers, for the so-called “day of action” on November 28.
Among the unions endorsing this call — described by a BBC journalist as a “shocking attack on Jews” — is the National Union of Journalists (NUJ). This is the same NUJ that claims to be the “voice for journalism and journalists in the UK and Ireland” and represents tens of thousands of journalists, including many senior BBC staff.
Tomorrow, the UK’s National Union of Journalists is encouraging its members to “wear something red, green, black or a Palestinian keffiyeh to visibly show solidarity” with Palestinians.
So much for objective reporting on Israel from British journalists.https://t.co/0Q1mYThgxw pic.twitter.com/p6aFittRgO
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 27, 2024
In its statement, the NUJ announced it was participating in the action, citing “records [that] show at least 135 Palestinian journalists have been killed since October 7, 2023.” The union further accused the Israeli government of “attacks and killings of journalists.”
The statement’s glaring omission of the events of October 7, 2023, is both striking and deliberate. That was the day that Hamas launched a murderous rampage into Israel, killing approximately 1,000 civilians, including journalists.
Yet the NUJ’s narrative erases the context of the massacre that ignited the current conflict in Gaza, and fails to acknowledge the Israeli journalists killed by Hamas terrorists.
This selective reporting raises another critical question: how many of the “135 Palestinian journalists” cited by the NUJ were directly involved in Hamas’ atrocities on October 7?
And how many of these people were propagandists working for Hamas-backed outlets such as Al-Aqsa TV or the pro-terror mouthpiece Al Jazeera, rather than legitimate journalists?
The NUJ’s decision to back this so-called “solidarity” campaign also blatantly violates its own code of conduct, specifically relating to material “likely to lead to hatred or discrimination on the grounds of a person’s age, gender, race, colour, creed, legal status, disability, marital status, or sexual orientation.”
Apparently, these rules don’t extend to protecting Jews or Israelis.
Even more troubling is the NUJ’s membership roster, which includes hundreds of BBC journalists. These individuals are now being encouraged to display open support for Palestinians — a move that flagrantly violates the BBC’s impartiality guidelines.
One BBC journalist, speaking anonymously to The Times, described the NUJ’s actions as “hypocritical and antisemitic” and a “shocking attack on Jews.” The employee noted that the move would prompt them to reconsider their membership in the union.
“BBC journalists, who pride themselves on impartiality and who fought to keep their NUJ free of politics, are being encouraged to break the BBC’s editorial guidelines by supporting a political cause,” they said. “Where is the day of action to support the journalists being killed by their own governments across the Middle East, including by Hamas?”
Another BBC staffer shared their unease, saying they were “dreading the thought of walking past anyone protesting at work.”
True to form, the BBC has refused to condemn the NUJ’s attempt to politicize its newsroom. Instead, it has opted for the spineless silence that it has become infamous for.
By saying nothing, the BBC is effectively abandoning its pretense of impartiality, allowing its Jewish employees to feel intimidated, and continuing its descent into becoming a battleground for political ideologies.
Funded by the wallets of British taxpayers, the BBC carries a great responsibility. It is not financed exclusively by pro-Palestinian activists or left-wing ideologues, but by everyone in the UK: Men and women, white and black, Christians, Jews, Muslims, and everyone else.
Polling consistently reflects this diversity of opinion, showing the British public does not overwhelmingly back the Palestinian cause; in fact, the opposite is often true.
The BBC faced its most intense criticism yet when it was found to have breached its own guidelines in reporting on the Israel-Hamas conflict more than 1,500 times since the war began.
That scandal, which emerged in September, should have been the wake-up call the BBC desperately needed.
Instead, the organization seems intent on signing its own death warrant. If the BBC continues alienating the very people who pay for its existence, it will not survive.
Meanwhile, the NUJ’s blatant pro-Palestinian advocacy calls into question how its members can possibly reconcile the need for professional, objective journalism with the actions of their trade union.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post BBC Silent as Journalists Urged to ‘Wear Keffiyeh to Work’ for Palestinian ‘Solidarity’ Day first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Rabbinical Council of America Slams Canada’s Trudeau for Agreeing to Comply With ICC Arrest Warrant for Netanyahu
Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Oct. 29, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Blair Gable
The Rabbinical Council of America, one of the world’s largest organizations of Orthodox rabbis, has penned a letter to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, slamming the leader over his promise to comply with the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense chief, Yoav Gallant.
In the letter dated Monday, the council expressed “profound outrage and disappointment regarding your recent statement that Canada will comply with the ICC indictment of democratically elected leaders of Israel, who stand accused of crimes against humanity.”
“This decision reflects a deeply troubling moral inversion, legitimizing a politicized institution increasingly marked by bias rather than a commitment to impartial justice,” the letter continued.
The council added that Trudeau’s backing of the ICC decision “tarnishes [Canada’s] reputation as a nation committed to human rights and democracy,” stating that support for the “antisemitic” ruling represents a “betrayal” to Jews within Canada and across the world.
The Hague-based ICC issued arrest warrants last week for Netanyahu, Gallant, and a Hamas leader, Ibrahim Al-Masri (better known as Mohammad Deif) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict.
Israeli leaders have lambasted the ICC’s decision to issue warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant as “antisemitic” and politically motivated, calling the allegations false and absurd. US lawmakers have said they intend to push legislation to sanction the ICC over its move.
This week’s letter from the rabbinical council said that its members were “deeply alarmed” by recent anti-Israel protests in Montreal, which included an “effigy” of Netanyahu” being set on fire. Though Trudeau condemned the demonstration, the council claimed that the Canadian government has exhibited a pattern of “selective enforcement” regarding hate speech laws. The group also urged the Canadian leader to take decisive action against Iran, citing the Iranian regime’s recent attempted assassination of former Justice Minister Irwin Cotler.
Following the ICC ruling, Trudeau confirmed that Canada would comply with the decision and arrest Netanyahu if he arrived on Canadian soil.
“We stand up for international law, and we will abide by all the regulations and rulings of the international courts,” Trudeau said during a press conference last week. “This is just who we are as Canadians.”
The ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel as it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, which established the court. Other countries including the US have similarly not signed the ICC charter. However, the ICC has asserted jurisdiction by accepting “Palestine” as a signatory in 2015, despite no such state being recognized under international law.
In the year following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, Canada has been rocked with protests condemning the Jewish state. Last Thursday, for example, more than 85,000 Quebec students participated in a “strike for Gaza” to demand their universities divest from Israel. The demonstration quickly escalated into violence, with students engaging in vandalism. Trudeau issued a statement condemning the protests as “acts of antisemitism, intimidation, and violence.”
Though Trudeau has repeatedly condemned the Oct. 7 slaughters and reaffirmed Israel’s right to defend itself, he has also implemented arms restrictions on the Jewish state. Earlier this year, Canada canceled 30 arms exports permits for Israel.
Meanwhile, over the past year, Jews have endured a rising tide of antisemitism and targeted violence in Canada. In 2023, Jews were the victims of 78 percent of religious-based hate crimes in Toronto, according to police-reported data.Overall in Canada, Jewish Canadians were the most frequently targeted group for hate crimes, with a 71 percent increase from the prior year.
The post Rabbinical Council of America Slams Canada’s Trudeau for Agreeing to Comply With ICC Arrest Warrant for Netanyahu first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israeli Foreign Minister Looks to Washington to Punish the ICC
An exterior view of the International Criminal Court in the Hague, Netherlands, March 31, 2021. Photo: REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Thursday he believed the United States would punish the International Criminal Court for having issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister.
Israel has said it will appeal the ICC decision to move against Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict.
But during a visit to the Czech Republic, Saar said other countries were also dismayed by the decision, including the United States.
“I tend to believe that in Washington, legislation is going to take place very shortly against the ICC and whoever cooperates with it,” Saar told a joint press conference with Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky.
Saar added that Israel would finish the 14-month-old war in Gaza when it “achieves its objectives” of returning hostages being held by Hamas and ensuring the Islamist terror group no longer controls the Palestinian enclave.
Saar said Israel did not intend to control civilian life in Gaza, adding that peace was “inevitable,” but couldn’t be based on “illusions.”
The post Israeli Foreign Minister Looks to Washington to Punish the ICC first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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